Contents

Story

The player takes on the role of Baldur, one of the Aesir. In the ancient past, the Norse gods truly existed in the form of cybernetically enhanced humans. Baldur, son of Odin, is one of these gods and it is his duty to protect the human race from an onslaught of an advancing machine presence determined to eradicate all human life.

In Too Human, the story chronicles the ongoing struggle between cybernetic Norse gods, the invading machine presence and mortal men. The story features many Norse gods and characters from Norse mythology including Thor, Loki, Odin, Heimdall, Freyja, and Mimir. The story features Yggdrasil, the tree of life, as a gateway to an alternate world known as Cyberspace that is accessed through the advanced technology of the Norse gods.

The machine presence in Too Human has a sinister purpose that is ironic when considered against the actions of the Norse gods. The human gods are using cybernetic implants to supplement their own abilities, thus becoming more machine. Conversely, the advancing machine army is harvesting human blood and limbs in an attempt to become more human.

The game's developer, Silicon Knights, is reluctant to reveal the story details due to the game's high budget and story driven gameplay. Despite this, a message is contained in the runes on the officially released box art for the game, reading 'Machine Of God Of Man Of Machine'.

One of the major themes of Too Human is the extent of cybernetic upgrades that the gods use. In their battles against the approaching mechanical armies, the gods must continually enhance themselves through upgrading their cybernetics to keep up with their opponents, thus they become increasingly similar to their machine adversaries. Baldur, the title character is viewed by the other Norse gods as being insufficiently enhanced, thus "too human".

Influences

In addition to Norse Mythology, Too Human is also influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote a book by the name of Human, All Too Human. A Nietzsche quotation, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become one himself," is shown in the beginning of a teaser trailer for the game. The same quote was also used in the introduction movie of the PC roleplaying game Baldur's Gate.

Gameplay

Too Human is a third-person action adventure role-playing game mixing elements of games like Devil May Cry and Diablo. It features twitch gameplay in the form of fast paced melee and ranged combat while also maintaining RPG elements including skill tree progression and dungeon crawling.

As a third-person action adventure game, Too Human features two notable features which are melee combat being controlled dynamically off the right analogue stick (much like Capcom's Monster Hunter series) and a camera system that is controlled by AI. The right analogue stick controlled combat removes the issues of three dimensional depth perception during combat while the AI controlled camera system allows for a cinematic experience while also being an aid to the story telling.

The RPG elements of Too Human include its story, different selectable classes, customizable weapons, armor and cybernetics, skill tree progression and item hunting. Too Human has 15 weapon classes, including two-handed swords, hammers, polearms, pistols, rifles, lasers, dual wielded one-handed swords and staves. The character is able to customize their armor in terms of color and its effectiveness against certain forms of attacks while also being able to swap armor sets. This game features skill trees unique to all the various classes that can be customized to the player's liking, this combined with the fact that it also includes item hunting like Diablo greatly increases the replayability of Too Human. As part of a planned trilogy this game features a leveling system which allows the player to progress from level 1 to 50 in the first game, then continue on to the second game with the same character and level up from level 50-100, and in the third the character levels from 100-150.

In Too Human, Baldur and all the other so called "gods" use cybernetics to make them more than human. These cybernetics can increase the strength, speed and abilities of the characters using them. One of these upgrades includes the ability to have a spider as part of your armor that can separate from you and fight for you. A major theme of the game is Baldur's reluctance to use the cybernetic implants to their full extent and as such is "Too Human".

Too Human will feature online play similar to Phantasy Star Online which will allow two players to connect over Xbox Live for cooperative play. This includes a drop in/out system so people can join you no matter where you or they are up to in the game. It is expected that co-op players will be able to take advantage of class combinations to defeat difficult enemies and gather rare items. The media releases of gameplay footage have shown an increasing emphasis on teamwork and cooperative gameplay.

History

The story and length of Too Human's development is as rich as the game itself, originally set to be released as a four disk set on the PlayStation in the summer of 1998, the Too Human title was pushed back many times. Silicon Knights never officially confirmed it's cancellation on the PlayStation, but after the exclusive publishing agreement signed with Nintendo in 1999, the title was presumed to be 'on-hold' until further notice. At Nintendo's. Spaceworld 2000, a FMV sequence of Too Human was on display along with demo cinematic screenshots. Fans of Silicon Knights quickly jumped to the conclusion that the Too Human project was moved to the GameCube platform, however, both Nintendo and Silicon Knights have refused to acknowledge it as a GameCube title with a launch date. When Silicon Knights ended it's exclusive publishing agreement with Nintendo, the fate of Too Human was once again in question.

In 2005, Silicon Knights announced that the Too Human project has expanded into a full trilogy and will be published exclusively on the Xbox 360 under the Microsoft Game Studio title. The title will use the upcoming Unreal Engine 3. The first game of the trilogy was expected to ship Winter 2006, with the second and third installment in the following year but the release was postponed indefinitely.

In an interview on MTV, Peter Moore promised a release by the end of June, 2008[1] but fears are that the release may be pushed back yet again. Those fears were realised as June passed but the game was officially announced for release on August 19, 2008 and also showed well in a demo release on Xbox Live announced during E3.

Description

Having dark and moody cinematic action with a heavy focus on a immersive, plot-driven story. The main character is john Franks and take place in the year 2450AD. Centering around a dark futuristic world where the lines between man and machine through genetics and prosthetics are being put to the test. The player willl be allowed to enhance their body through mechanical implants much like Deus Ex.